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| Karen Fix, AIC PA |
| J. Christopher Frey, AIC PA |
| Tina Reichenbach |
| Joe Sembrat, AIC Fellow |
| Kirsten Travers |
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My name is Karen Fix and I am an art and architectural conservator in private practice, doing business under the name of Conservation Artisans. Although my educational training focused on architecture, my undergraduate degree was in art, so my work has focused primarily on public sculpture and monuments. Because I am a hands-on conservator carrying out the treatment myself, and I have to go where the monument is, I travel a lot (as I write this, I have been on the road for 79 days…and counting).
In 2007, I treated a carved sandstone lintel taken from a Con Edison plant being demolished in New York City. They wanted to save this and create a sculptural installation at their current headquarters, not because the plant was architecturally significant but because it represented part of their company’s history. The location of the lintel, and its sculptural form, was a perfect haven for roosting pigeons. So I was presented with piles of guano, which had pretty much ‘fossilized’. Using a combination of paper poulticing and steam vapor, I was able to remove a large majority of the deposits and their salts.
My name is Kirsten Travers and I am a second year student at the Winterthur / University of Delaware Art Conservation Program (WUDPAC), where I specialize in the conservation of painted surfaces, with a particular focus on architectural paints. My work is combination of historic research, microscopic analysis, and on-site investigation to fully understand the materials and techniques used to decorate and conserve historic interiors. Under the direction of my advisor, Associate Professor Richard Wolbers, I am working on a variety of off-site projects which are designed to prepare me for the “real world” challenges of architectural conservation. For instance, we travel regularly to a historic church in Brooklyn, NY, to clean a mural which has been obscured by black soot trapped under a modern clear coating. Meanwhile, in Petersburg, Virginia, we are conducting an analysis of the interior finishes at Battersea, an 18th century Palladian-style home on the banks of the Appomattox River. This past summer I worked in Hawaii, where I spent eight weeks documenting and consolidating the flaking surfaces of a Syrian painted wood ceiling, currently installed at Doris Duke’s Shangri La estate.
From Honolulu to Brooklyn, painted surfaces never cease to capture my interest and imagination. I look forward to the travel, color, and variety this field has to offer as my studies continue.
My name is Joe Sembrat and I am President and Senior Conservator of Conservation Solutions, Inc. (CSI). I achieved Fellow status in AIC in 2007 and served as its Architectural Specialty Group Coordinator and Chair from 2000 to 2002. I have been in the conservation field for over 17 years providing conservation assessments, design, and implementation of conservation treatments, and lecturing on relevant topics in the field. I specialize in the treatment of historic monuments and sculpture, industrial artifacts, and historic buildings.
High-profile projects include the treatment of almost a thousand artifacts from the salvaged R.M.S. Titanic wreck-site, such as the ‘Big Piece’, artifacts recovered from the R.M.S. Carpathia wreck-site, and the conservation of two Saturn V rockets.
My name is Tina Reichenbach and I work in private practice under the company name Richbrook Conservation. I specialize in historic architectural finishes analysis, utilizing site investigation and microscopy to guide the reinstatement or conservation of architectural painted surfaces.
In architecture, painted surfaces are traditionally and systematically obliterated through routine overpainting. Reproduction is often the only viable option for restoring an historic appearance, more viable than removing complex overpaint sequences. To this end, unknown historic finishes, often encapsulated under generations of overpaint, must be researched and analyzed to provide guidance for accurate reproduction, and ultimately restoration of the entire building's historic aesthetic.
I recently investigated the finishes of the lobby of a New York City building, which currently has white walls but a dark, heavy treatment of the molded plaster ceiling, including generous bronzing. The analysis revealed this ceiling to have been originally finished with a simple whitewash and the walls a faux-ashlar, reversing the established tonal hierarchy but lending the space not only a historically accurate but a more elegant appearance.
My name is Chris Frey, and I am President and Principal Conservator of Keystone Preservation Group, a consulting firm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania which specializes in architectural conservation and historic preservation. Project services include analysis and interpretation of historic building materials, preconstruction testing programs, treatment mock-ups and assessments, conditions surveys, specifications and scope recommendations, construction administration, rehabilitation investment tax credit (RITC) consultation, custom databases and surveys for historic monuments and grave markers.
One recent project which required the integration of several of the aforementioned disciplines was the preliminary assessment of a ca. 1899 masonry church in northern New Jersey. Although the initial scope included only a brief site overview and broad recommendations, it became apparent that basic binocular-level assessment would not sufficiently diagnose what appeared to be complex subsurface problems. Working with the project architect and engineer, I provided direction for and supervision of a testing program which included the removal of existing mortar joints in several locations to allow for subsurface probes using a video/camera-equipped borescope. Whereas it had initially been hoped that simple repointing might arrest water infiltration, the probes helped identify systemic issues which will require somewhat more substantial intervention.
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